Stable and near-infrared absorption enhanced dye-sensitized solar cell based on silver nanoplates@silica nanocrystals

Abstract

We synthesize the near-infrared light responsive titanium dioxide/(silver nanoplates@silica) (TiO2/(Ag NPLs@SiO2)) photoanode by embellishing the Ag NPLs@SiO2 on the surface of bare TiO2 anode. TiO2/(Ag NPLs@SiO2) photoanode enhances the device performance under simulated sunlight illumination and near-infrared light irradiation, owing to some potential advantages: Ag NPLs can harvest and convert the limited near-infrared light into the plasmonic hot-electron; the surface plasma resonance (SPR) effect of Ag NPLs promotes to produce additional photo-generated carriers; the core-shell structure of Ag NPLs@SiO2 can accelerate the separation of photo-generated electron-hole pairs and can reduce the recombination; and the SiO2 shell can protect the Ag NPLs from reuniting in the thermal treatment process, can prevent the Ag NPLs being etched by iodide/triiodide (I−/I3−) electrolyte, and can improve the stability of devices further.